Tennessee Williams
THE GLASS MENAGERIE
and she is holding an enormous black patentleather pocketbook with nickel clasps and
initials. This is her full-dress outfit, the one she
usually wears to the D.A.R.
 Before entering she looks through the door.
 She purses her lips, opens her eyes very wide,
rolls them upward, and shakes her head.


Then she slowly lets herself in the door. Seeing
her mother's expression LAURA touches her lips
with a nervous gesture.]

LAURA: Hello, Mother, I was - [She makes a
nervous gesture toward the chart on the Wall.
AMANDA leans against the shut door and
stares at LAURA with a martyred look.]
A M A N D A: Deception ? Deception ? [She
slowly removes her hat and gloves, continuing
the sweet suffering stare. She lets the hat and
gloves fall on the floor - a bit of acting.]
 LAURA [shakily]: How was the DAR. meeting?
[AMANDA slowly opens her purse and removes
a dainty white handkerchief which she shakes
out delicately and delicately touches to her lips
and nostrils.]

Didn't you go to the DAR. meeting, Mother?
 AMANDA [faintly, almost inaudibly]: - No. - No.
[Then more forcibly.] I did not have the strength
- to go to the DAR. In fact, I did not have the
courage! I wanted to find a hole in the ground
and hide myself in it for ever ! [She crosses
slowly to the wall and removes the diagram of
the typewriter keyboard.

She holds it in front of her for a second, staring
at it sweetly and sorrowfully - then bites her lips
and tears it into two pieces.]
 LAURA [faintly]: Why did you do that, Mother?
[AMANDA repeats the same procedure with the
chart of the Gregg alphabet.] Why are you ??


AMANDA: Why? Why? How old are you, Laura?

LAURA: Mother, you know my age.

AMANDA: I thought that you were an adult; it
seems that I was mistaken. [She crosses slowly
to the sofa and sinks down and stares at
LAURA.]
LAURA: Please don't stare at me, Mother.
 [AMANDA closes her eyes and lowers her head.
Count ten.]
 AMANDA: What are we going to do, what is
going to become of us, what is the future?


[Count ten.]
LAURA: Has something happened, Mother?
[AMANDA draws a long breath and takes out
the handkerchief again. Dabbing process.]
Mother, has something happened?
 AMANDA: I'll be all right in a minute, I'm just
bewildered [Count five.] - by life. ...
 LAURA: Mother, I wish that you would tell me
what's happened!


AMANDA: As you know, I was supposed to be
inducted into my office at the D.A.R. this
afternoon. [IMAGE: A SWARM OF
TYPEWRITERS.] But I stopped off at Rubicam's
business college to speak to your teachers
about your having a cold and ask them what
progress they thought you were making down
there.

LAURA: Oh....
AMANDA: I went to the typing instructor and
introduced myself as your mother. She didn't
know who you were. Wingfield, she said. We
don't have any such student enrolled at the
school!
 I assured her she did, that you had been going
to classes since early in January.

'I wonder,' she said, 'if you could be talking
about that terribly shy little girl who dropped
out of school after only a few days'
attendance?'
 'No,' I said, 'Laura, my daughter, has been going
to school every day for the past six weeks !'

'Excuse me,' she said. She took the attendance
book out and there was your name,
unmistakably printed, and all the dates you
were absent until they decided that you had
dropped out of school.
 I still said, 'No, there must have been some
mistake I There must have been some mix-up
in the records !'


And she said, 'No - I remember her perfectly
now. Her hands shook so that she couldn't hit
the right keys ! The first time we gave a speedtest, she broke down completely - was sick at
the stomach and almost had to be carried into
the wash-room! After that morning she never
showed up any more. We phoned the house but
never got any answer' - while I was working at
Famous and Barr, I suppose, demonstrating
those - Oh!
I felt so weak I could barely keep on my feet !
 I had to sit down while they got me a glass of
water !
 Fifty dollars' tuition, all of our plans - my hopes
and ambition for you - just gone up the spout,
just gone up the spout like that. [LAURA draws
a long breath and gets awkwardly to her feet
She crosses to the victrola and winds it up.]
 What are you doing?


LAURA: Oh I [She releases the handle and
returns to her seat.]

AMANDA: Laura, where have you been going
when you've gone on pretending that you were
going to business college ?

L A U RA: I've just been going out walking.

AMANDA: That's not true.

LAURA: It is. I just went walking.

AMANDA: Walking? Walking? In winter?
Deliberately courting pneumonia in that light
coat? Where did you walk to, Laura?

LAURA: All sorts of places - mostly in the park.

AMANDA: Even after you'd started catching that
cold?

LAURA: It was the lesser of two evils, Mother.
[IMAGE: WINTER SCENE IN PARK.] I couldn't go
back up. I threw up -on the floor !

AMANDA: From half past seven till after five
every day you mean to tell me you walked
around in the park, because you wanted to
make me think that you were still going to
Rubicam's Business College?

LAURA: It wasn't as bad as it sounds. I went
inside places to get warmed up.

AMANDA: Inside where?

LAURA: I went in the art museum and the birdhouses at the Zoo. I visited the penguins every
day! Sometimes I did without lunch and went to
the movies. Lately I've been spending most of
my afternoons in the jewel-box, that big glasshouse where they raise the tropical flowers.

AMANDA: You did all this to deceive me, just for
deception? [LAURA looks down.] Why?

LAURA: Mother, when you're disappointed, you
get that awful suffering look on your face, like
the picture of Jesus' mother in the museum !

AMANDA: Hush !

LAURA: I couldn't face it.
[Pause. A whisper of strings.
 LEGEND: 'THE CRUST OF HUMILITY'.]


AMANDA [hopelessly fingering the huge
pocketbook]: So what are we going to do the
rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the
parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass
menagerie, darling? Eternally play those wornout phonograph records your father left as a
painful reminder of him? We won't have a
business career - we've given that up because
it gave us nervous indigestion ! [Laughs
wearily.]

What is there left but dependency all our lives?
I know so well what becomes of unmarried
women who aren't prepared to occupy a
position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the
South - barely tolerated spinsters living upon
the grudging patronage of sister's husband or
brother's wife !
- stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room
- encouraged by one in-law to visit another little birdlike women without any nest - eating
the crust of humility all their life !
 Is that the future that we've mapped out for
ourselves? I swear it's the only alternative I can
think of !
 It isn't a very pleasant alternative, is it? Of
course - some girls do marry!

[LAURA twists her hands nervously.]
 Haven't you ever liked some boy?
 LAURA: Yes. I liked one once. [Rises.] I came
across his picture a while ago.
 AMANDA [with some interest]. He gave you his
picture?

LAURA: No, it's in the year-book.
 AMANDA: [disappointed]: Oh - a high-school
boy.
 [SCREEN IMAGE: JIM AS HIGH-SCHOOL HERO
BEARING A SILVER CUP.]
 LAURA: Yes. His name was Jim. [LAURA lifts the
heavy annual from the claw-foot table.] Here he
is in The Pirates of Penzance.


AMANDA [absently]: The what?


LAURA: The operetta the senior class put on.
He had a wonderful voice and we sat across
the aisle from each other Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays in the Aud. Here he is
with the silver cup for debating !See his grin?
AMANDA [absently]: He must have had a jolly
disposition.
 LAURA: He used to call me - Blue Roses.
 [IMAGE: BLUE ROSES.]
 AMANDA: Why did he call you such a name as
that?


LAURA: When I had that attack of pleurosis - he
asked me what was the matter when I came
back. I Said pleurosis he thought that I said
Blue Roses ! So that's what he always called
me after that. Whenever he saw me, he'd
holler, 'Hello, Blue Roses ! I didn't care for the
girl that he went out with. Emily Meisenbach.
Emily was the best-dressed girl at Soldan. She
never struck me, though, as being sincere. . . .
It says in the Personal Section - they're
engaged. That's - six years ago ! They must be
married by now.
 AMANDA: Girls that aren't cut out for business
careers usually wind up married to some nice
man. [Gets up with aspark of revival.] Sister,
that's what you'll do !

[LAURA utters a startled, doubtful laugh. She
reaches quickly for a piece of glass.]
 LAURA: But, Mother
 AMANDA: Yes ? [Crossing to photograph.]
 LAURA [in a tone of frightened apology]: I'm crippled !
 [IMAGE: SCREEN.]


AMANDA: Nonsense ! Laura, I've told you never,
never to use that word. Why, you're not crippled,
you just have a little defect - hardly noticeable,
even! When people have some slight
disadvantage like that, they cultivate other
things to make up for it - develop charm - and
vivacity and - charm! That's all you have to do
![She turns again to the photograph.] One thing
your father had plenty of - was charm!

[Tom motions to the fiddle in the wings.]


THE SCENE FADES OUT WITH MUSIC


LEGEND ON SCREEN: 'AFTER THE FIASCO'


[TOM speaks from the fire-escape landing.]
TOM: After the fiasco at Rubicam's Business
College, the idea of getting a gentleman caller
for Laura began to play a more and more
important part in Mother's calculations. It
became an obsession. Like some archetype of
the universal unconscious, the image of the
gentleman caller haunted our small apartment.
...
 IMAGE: YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS.]
